Announcing a new series: American Liberty and Justice
01-Sep-2009 Announcing a new seriesA M E R I C A N L I B E R T Y A N D J U S T I C E
Focusing on the American legal system and its operation in local, state, or national settings, American Liberty and Justice invites explorations of legal culture, criminal justice administration, state constitutional development, and judicial decisions.
Gordon Morris Bakken, series editor Editorial Board Michal Belknap, California Western School of Law
Gordon Morris Bakken teaches American history at California State University, Fullerton. He is the author of twenty books as well as numerous articles and law reviews, book chapters, encyclopedia entries, and book reviews.
Richard Griswold del Castillo, San Diego State University
Rebecca Mead, Northern Michigan University
Matthew Whitaker, Arizona State University
FORTHCOMING SEPTEMBER 2009
The "honor defense" in six celebrated murder trials, 1896–1977
Sex, Murder, and the Unwritten Law
Courting Judicial Mayhem, Texas Style
356 pages, 6.125 x 9.25 | 48 photos, 1 map | $29.95 cloth
978-089672-662-8
From the 1880s until after World War I, Texas prosecutions for adultery, fornication, rape, seduction, and sodomy were many, but formal penal code seemed insufficiently stringent to southerners, who often sought other redress. "Unwritten law" seemed to justify the killing—or at least maiming—of almost anyone who by actual physical contact or inappropriate comment offended southern notions of female virtue, male honor, or sanctity of marriage.
Illicit sex is the catalyst in all the Texas murder trials recounted in Sex, Murder, and the Unwritten Law. In each account the victim, at least in the perception of the defendant, had committed some sexual misconduct. In every case the defendant opened fire with premeditated intent to kill. And in all the resulting trials, the defense relied at least in part on unwritten law.
Bill Neal explores the imaginative machinations of defense lawyers who extricated obviously guilty clients when there appeared no legal basis upon which to peg a defense. Typically defense attorneys outmaneuvered prosecutors and judges, whose efforts to rein in excesses met with little success. These courtroom triumphs and underlying strategies are remarkable to lawyers, historians, and laypersons alike.
One of the most original and interesting studies that I have encountered—a prime example of how history at the grass roots can increase our understanding of the history of American violence. —Richard Maxwell Brown
As a practicing criminal lawyer, Bill Neal spent more than four decades frequenting county courthouses in West Texas and hearing tales of sensational crimes and celebrated trials of bygone years. His work has garnered awards from the National Association for Outlaw and Lawmen History, the West Texas Historical Association, the Writers’ League of Texas, and the Western Writers of America. He and his wife, Gayla, live in Abilene, Texas.
